At this moment, in this most luxurious hotel in London, I am paid to listen to Antony in the Johnsons on a stereo that is designed as complexity for complexity's sake in a room that I will never understand. At this moment, after reading but two old poems by Oscar Wilde, I step from that bed in duty to write for writing's sake. At this moment, in this country of brand-aware yet life-ignorant conformists, I mourn the death of thought, authenticity, and adulthood.

This week, I suffer not for art but for reality. In my dreams, in this most cherished realm, I create to relieve us of our bleeding consumption. In my waking, I contribute to that same polluted realm of normalcy. I hope to succeed in accelerating the ugly so that it becomes unbearable enough to drive us to the beautiful and blissful. Can we please destroy the ugly by exposing it as even uglier?

After a yesterday spent at Mercedez-Benz World...amongst a sea of brand-believers convinced by the roaring engines of destruction...unaware that "the best or nothing" is nothing but the worst for us...infantalized by the brand-good-time...the brand-are-you-alright?...the-brand-someday-please-buy!...I enthusiastically plant the mind-fuck seed at the feet of the desperate believers. You sicken me, all of you British with your considerate and legalized infantalization. I am a man, if perhaps one of the few inhabiting your streets, trains, and motor-ways this week. I've seen you see me and yet you no longer remember. Have you forgotten what a man is amongst this branded nightmare of illusion?

So retreat to your iPods, your iPads, your pink-shirted striped suits, your silly games, your .IamaBiggerTwatThanU.co.uk branded barf-bags, your utter nothingness in a life that has become a spectacle of digital fatigue masked with feigned enthusiasm. I have stood without problem today, mocking dignity on a convention floor aside the Thames and I have spoken to you from the realm of invented absurdity with a lazy position of mockery; yet you saw and heard nothing of it. You will even pay me for it and I will collect with a smirk. I do not feel sympathy for your ignorance. In this life I have seen both children and adults with real problems, with real feelings, and with real minds processing real things. You're funny to me but not because you are as clever as you think. You may possess realness, you clearly do not display it. So I cannot account for it in my account of it. You rank with the Japanese and the Americans. You likely even lead this race to nowhere and we can only hope that your nowhere will save us with an illumination of your nothingness. That is the only hope we are left with.

Mark Manney is the founder of “I am” by Infobeing (www.infobeing.com) (mark.manney@infobeing.com).

London is something else than Britain. I absolutely hate London as I lived there and everything you write is true. Otherwise life is easy here. Real estate is much cheaper or in some parts the same than in Slovakia + if you take in account how much people earn here and there. Crowds are only in London and then during lunchtime in Tescos anywhere :) Fuel costs are just about the same as in Slovakia and food prices are pretty much the same. Plus if you got a baby, you get way too many benefits. It's easy to set up, run and if needed close the business.
But you're absolutely right that it is all about the lifestyle. For us, there's no better option...yet.

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Founder & CEO of Ethereum social startup called "I am" by Infobeing. I also make music as Abscondo, and I recently published a book called Belove: How to End Pain by Escaping Your Ego which is available on Kindle from Amazon.com.